We finally enter the resort after visiting with the CM outside and enter a grand lobby...not the shear mass or size of the Wilderness lodge or AKL mind you, but still very impressive.
as you can see the drawings on the right wall start out as sketches, and as you get toward the gift shop and out of the lobby they have turned into full color drawings.
i have a few panoramic shoots later in the report to share
dawn had done online check in for us the week prior so we hopped in that line,
i showed the CM my ID, and she quickly found my pamphlet of materials...and proceded to get out the resort map and draw where our room was...i duplicated the material for you below. our entire check in process was less than 3 minutes.
she told us to just keep swimming past the nemo pool and then to migrate past the lion king, and we forget what she said for once we get to the little mermaid, but it had something to do with the movie.
i traced our route in black to our room.
now i asked her if she had anything that was facing the courtyard instead of the back of the resort and she check for me, and said there was nothing for our days that would work.
we actually were okay with that, as not sure how much noise the courtyard would echo and make in the evening when people were coming back to there rooms...we really enjoyed our room location and had no noise issues the entire trip.
and since i read alot of people complaining about the time it takes to get to the main building/buses etc, i timed our walk...depending on the day it took between 8 and 10 minutes to walk up with the whole family kids in tow
later in the week i timed the night walk by myself to go up and get drinks..5-6 minutes.
is it a distance yes, is it closer than say the farthest out room at CBR resort from there main food and drink station, seemed to be...it felt like the walk we had from our room on the other side of the lake to Coronado main building when we stayed there.
here is that map.
so i would say if you are worried about the walk to the rooms don't be, you walk a lot farther during the day around the parks, so don't let a walk back to your room detour you from staying here.
we were ready for some exploring and fun to begin.
we found our way past the gift shop to the doors leading to the pool
we all just stopped and took it all in, its something to see for the first time and pictures dont do it justice at all the detail that is around you. the kids didnt even move when they saw it.
but with it being a while since we had lunch and getting later, we were all hungry and eager to just keep swimming and begin our migration through the lion king to our room. you can see the large rocks that hide the stairwells in the lion king section.
still holding on tight to his puzzle he got a little earlier.
we have a video of our entire walk to the room that candi took on the video camera and i was in charge of pictures...well you can see i got rafiki on this side, but never got mufasa on the pride rock on the other...ohh well, and all the times i walked past him during the trip i thought i already had it so never took it.
you can just image what it looks like.
(ran over of the picture limit so insert smiley here)
on the resort map that i posted, there is a red circle on the other side of this rock that is where they did the movies each night for the resort.
you could walk under this large tree or go the other path to the left they meet back up at the elephant graveyard, which i never took a picture of because i thought i took it he first day(once again over limit so insert head smacking smilie here)
ill also through in the picture here that shows the path from our room to the busses that we took each morning, it cut down on the having to walk farther through the main building to get to the bus stop...timed it and was right about 8 minutes each morning.
we successfully migrate through the lion king section and are in front of the little mermaid section...on the right they were working on tearing out the sod and putting new sod down..we saw them do this to a few sections during the trip, and the areas that they tore out looked perfectly fine so not sure what was wrong with it.
anyway, here is the entrance before us.
and the stairwells that are hidden by some nice underwater plants.
we then have some dinglehoppers-which i didnt get a picture of, but may have later in the week, and some other lovely treasures that ariel has gathered over her adventures.
you can tell the landscaping is growing in and was freshly planted, but once they get a little bigger it will look really nice, there are many areas where they have a crushed seashell/sand mixture as the base and that is pretty cool looking.
at the end of the main walkway we have the prince eric statue that went overboard during the storm.
on the left we have king triton
and the right was ursula, which i have a few partial pics later in the report of but dont think i have a full body one of here..(scratch that i see her in the background of two of the pictures above.
i know you are thinking seriously dude, major TR party foul.
we move on to the pool in the middle of the courtyard.
follow the swimming fish along the path toward our section.
we hang a left around the laundry/bathroom facility by the pool
so serious and taking it all in, but what does he see just ahead of us.
why the little mermaid and flounder of course...we got to walk past her every day many times back and forth to get to our room.
stay tuned working on the actual "room" pictures right now...
and once again sorry for the lack of a few pictures of some of the details, there is so much to take pictures of that sometimes you forget a few or in my case many items to photograph.
room pictures coming up in part 2.
feel free to comment along the whole way this time, i enjoy the questions and comments.
Did you check if Pop buses were closer , it looks like you were close to the bridge and that is a short walk to Classic hall!!!???
I can't wait!!
